Citizens Advice Bureau Queenstown chairman Jon Bitcheno said the service responded to needs in the community and as well as correlating the rise with a general population increase, he said it was possible people were dealing with more problems.
"Within the last year or two we have certainly seen more people come to us with financial problems," Mr Bitcheno said.
"Certainly in the time I have been in the community that year-on-year increase has been consistent.
"In contrast, nationally the number of clients has gone down ... certainly [it] has not increased at the same rate as the population of New Zealand."
At the Citizens Advice Bureau Queenstown's annual meeting on Friday Mr Bitcheno told members and guests 4479 inquiries were recorded for the previous year compared with 4363 for the 2009-10 year.
He also said while the largest group using the service was still New Zealanders, the percentage dropped from 51% to 37%.
The second-largest group were people from the United Kingdom and Ireland, followed by those from Central or South America.
"A further breakdown of the numbers shows 97% of inquiries were from people living and working locally in the Wakatipu, Wanaka and Central Otago area."
Apart from "other", legal and government inquiries were the most popular and September was the busiest month with 474 inquiries, which could be due to overseas visitors looking for summer employment.
Guest speaker, Queenstown Mayor Vanessa van Uden, spoke of her struggle to encourage people to come to the council with their complaints and suggestions rather than lamenting in a pub to others.
Ms van Uden said the citizens advice bureau and the council were similar in that they both dealt with people's aspirations and emotions.
She reflected that while for some, Queenstown was a place where success was achieved, "for others it's a place of monumental challenges" and a struggle to find both ends, let alone make them meet.
She said the citizens advice bureau tagline "Just Ask Us" was highly effective and said "it's a catchphrase I'd like to employ at council".
Citizerns Advice Bureau Queenstown is open Monday-Friday from 9.30am-4.30pm and is one of 96 offices in New Zealand which are kept operational by community funding sources and about 2500 volunteers.
